Would you like to help refugee families?

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The new legal regulations in Hungary, which took effect in March, made life impossible and humiliating even for those refugees, who were granted status as refugees or received subsidiary protection in Hungary.

1. They spend months in the transit zones in jail-like circumstances. Here the only goal is survival, there are no education or integration projects either for children or for adults, although these would be available even in a correctional facility. There are some people, who have started their fourth month behind barbed wires.

2. If the Immigration Office accepts their request for refugee status, they are brought to the reception station in Vámosszabadi. They are allowed to stay there for 30 days (until their papers are ready), and when it’s over, they have to leave the camp. From then on they aren’t entitled to any provision or support.

Many families run out of their savings by the time they get there. They are left alone in an alien country without shelter, job and language knowledge. Charities try to help in this dire status as much as they can, but their sources are finite, too. The result: there are more and more refugees, even children, who are starving…

This Monday we brought Ahmed and his family (we have changed the names) from Vámosszabadi, because their 30 days have run out. We’ve known them for a long time. In January Ahmed was a community leader on the Serbian side of the transit zones: one of those, who took care of the residents of the camp. We talked a lot with him back then. He tried to learn Hungarian words, he always greeted us with “szia” (hello) and said goodbye with “köszönöm” (thank you). And he had already decided then and there that he would prefer to stay in Hungary with his family. Ahmed and his family reached the transit zone in April. Their case was obvious to the authorities, too: they fled Afghanistan in a life-threatening situation, so they were among the first to be granted refugee status and thus they were able to leave the transit. By the help of a charity Ahmed and his family have a place to stay. He’s been looking for a job in vain yet, although he’s very intelligent, helpful and polite. He’s trying his best to learn Hungarian quickly. But until he gets a job, he needs help otherwise they would starve.

On the picture attached you can see our chat with him where he lists the raw materials they need for cooking. The Hungarian foundation of Migration Aid created a separate financial fund for the support of Ahmed and other families in the same situation. Every week we take them for shopping and buy what they need. You can also support Ahmed or the other refugees in the same position, who are trying to survive in the country. If you put together an aid package, we take it to them, or you can donate to the solidarity fund of Migration Aid. For further information please contact us on the solidarity@migrationaid.org email address. If you want to donate our work:

PayPal: info@migrationaid.org or visit this site.
Thank you for your help!